Hank Willis Thomas Artist Talk (Video)

On March 12, 2013, Aperture Foundation, in collaboration with the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons the New School for Design, was pleased to present an artist talk with Hank Willis Thomas, a photo-conceptual artist working with themes related to identity, history, and popular culture. Appropriation and juxtaposition are two of many strategies with which Thomas orchestrates his interdisciplinary practice. In this video excerpt, Thomas discusses his series Branded (2011), which adopts a commercial vernacular to decry the commodification of African-Americans, both in contemporary sports and in the historical slave trade. A basketball player dunks into a noose, for example, or a Nike swoosh is branded onto a man’s head. Thomas’s images confront our difficult history through the universal legibility of advertising.

Hank Willis Thomas gained wide recognition with his highly provocative series B®ANDED, which addresses the commodification of African-American male identity by raising questions about visual culture and the power of logos.